Rui Patricio would now be a Wolves player if Sporting president Bruno de Carvalho and Jorge Mendes’ Gestifute hadn’t got themselves into an almighty quarrel at the end of last week.
A deal for around €18m was said to have been agreed, but disagreements over commissions and previous Sporting debts served to ruin everything.
The goalkeeper, who has had just about enough of being at Sporting under Bruno, then took moves to rescind his contract with the Portuguese club for ‘just cause’, saying he’d been in fear of his life at the club following an attack by supporters.
Monday’s edition of Record details what was in the Wolves deal for Patricio. The Premier League club’s attempts are presented as far more serious than Napoli, with the Italian club never actually submitting an offer.
It’s stated Sporting prepared a draft agreement for Wolves with a total price of €18m. The fee would have been paid over four instalments, with €4.5m being the first chunk. Sporting were then presented with the possibility of receiving €18m immediately, which would have been great for the club.
As is often the case with Sporting, there was also an ‘anti-rivals’ clause, meaning Wolves couldn’t later sell Patricio to Porto or Benfica.
Patricio had his medical, and then the trouble happened.
There were suggestions in Portugal over the weekend that a deal could be revived, but there seems no step forward on that yet.
